When I met Jess, she was an enthusiastic teenager, jumping into her first ever ballet class. From that moment on, I have been continuously impressed by her drive to succeed, her zeal for life, and her resilience. As you read her story, you will see just what I mean! As I've watched her grow up and into the beautiful woman you see in this feature, I remain encouraged by the fact that she has never lost her sense of self along the way, and that she spreads joy and kindness wherever she goes!

"Five facts that I want the Simply Sisterhood community to know about me:

1. I’ve never had a brain freeze, which means I never quite fill up on ice cream.

2. Being from Albuquerque, Balloon Fiesta to me is more of a holiday, my favorite time of the year!

3. This fall, I’ll begin volunteering with the IRC in Atlanta providing support to refugees.

4. Slowly but surely, I’m studying linguistics through UNM.

5. I have really flexible feet, so I can walk on the tops of my toes."​

"I was born and raised in Albuquerque. I wasn’t really a tomboy, but I was definitely not girly. When I was young, I really wasn’t one of those kids with an intense focus or hobby. I was just very go-with-the-flow. In middle school, I asked one of my best friends what she was doing after school one day, and she was trying out for the dance team. Spur of the moment, I called my dad and told him I wasn’t taking the bus home and asked him to pick me up later because I wanted to try out. My parents were both pretty shocked, because I had never really taken a big interest in dance, other than watching episodes of the TV show So You Think You Can Dance? I made the team! I remember working on our very first routine that we were set to perform for Halloween, and calling my mom and getting emotional because I just really wanted to work hard and put my best effort forward for something because it really mattered to me! I was just a seventh grader on a middle school dance team, but it felt so big and important to me and I had such energy that I wanted to put forth for this goal. That moment has always stuck with me - because even at that moment, I knew how important dance would be to my life.

I danced in high school on the school team as well. I also started dancing at a studio during that time, and that was when I really started to get serious and planning dance into my future and investing. My high school coach, Leslie, invested so much into me and I am forever grateful to her. She’s such a glamorous person. She is the incarnation of the phrase “I woke up like this,” which was not something I was really familiar with. So much of dance is how you present yourself and Leslie really helped me to become more comfortable with the showmanship aspect of it as well. After high school, I tried out for the dance team at the University of New Mexico and felt really confident that it was the next step. I danced in middle school and high school, so it made sense that the next step would be college! I didn’t even make it past the first cut of auditions. It was scary for me, because it was the first time I wasn’t really a part of a team as a dancer. I kept taking classes at the studio, and I spent a lot of time dancing by myself to develop my strengths. I took a lot of random dance classes at UNM as well to build upon what I had already learned.

Leslie told me about auditions for the Duke City Gladiators (arena football) Dance Team, and I decided to give it a shot. It was my first “grown up” audition - the kind where you wear your hair down and have your make up done, and I had a lot of people help me prepare for it. I made it! I danced with them for a year. I think about how different things would have been if I had made the team at UNM. It was the natural, expected order of things; middle school dance team, high school dance team, college dance team, and THEN professional. But that actually wouldn’t have helped me get to where I am now. The experience dancing with the arena football team was really informative for me and such a learning experience."​

"In the offseason, I was still taking a bunch of dance classes with the girls and coach of my pro team. The past year, my coach had been dropping hints that I should audition for an NBA dance team, and specifically the Atlanta Hawks Cheerleaders. We had gone to Vegas for a dance convention and Leslie, my coach, had introduced me to the director of the Hawks Cheerleaders while I was out there. It was nothing formal, but she watched me in a few classes and we had a nice conversation. Fast forward to a random jazz class in Albuquerque a year later, and my coach and some of the girls were telling me that I should go audition. I was pretty adamant that I wasn’t ready - I was only nineteen at the time and just felt too inexperienced to put myself out there. I was leaving to visit some friends in Texas the following morning and Leslie joked that I should fly from Texas to Atlanta for the auditions, which I just laughed off. But she had a heart to heart talk with me and showed a lot of support and confidence. . . and I decided I was going to do it! That night, I changed my plane ticket, and decided I was going to fly from Texas to Atlanta and go for it! I had JUST enough money saved up for the trip and made all sorts of arrangements to make it possible. I asked an old friend who was living in Atlanta if I could stay a night or two with him because I could only afford an AirBNB for a certain amount of nights. He said I could stay with him and so the trip was all set. I didn’t even have a smart phone or GPS, so I had to print all of the directions I would need ahead of time and printed the bus schedules, because I couldn’t afford to rent a car - or even old enough to do it! My parents didn’t really believe that I was doing this until the day came that I flew out to Atlanta. Less that twenty four hours before I left, my place to stay for those first couple of nights fell through. The guy I was going to stay with told me it wasn’t going to work out and I could no longer stay with him, which threw a wrench in my plans. There were so many obstacles working against me, but I just wanted to follow through and make it happen. I had a folder with all of my maps and bus routes for the week and I was off! That first night, I ended up sleeping at the airport because I didn’t have a place to sleep. I scrounged up some extra money and was able to sleep at my AIRBNB an extra night. My commute during the week of the auditions was almost three hours; I had to ride three buses and two trains to get from where I was staying to the arena. I was literally up at five in the morning walking a mile to the bus stop to get on my way.

When I got to that first open call audition, I just thought that It didn’t matter what happened because I had made it and I really just wanted to have fun. And it was so amazing to be in an arena full of women who shared the same dream as me. I had a blast! When they were calling out numbers for finalists, I wasn’t expecting my number to be called and so I wasn’t nervous at all. I was proud of myself for just showing up and putting forth my best effort and getting my first major audition under my belt. And then they called my number as a finalist and I thought, “Oh man. Now this is serious!” and that’s when the nerves kicked in!

The finalist week was a really diverse set of things that we had to work through. We did interviews, team bonding, fitness tests, and acting, because they really want to see how you will engage with the fans. The dancing during finalists week was really minimal, because it is more about how you hold yourself and if you are someone they want to represent their team. I made friends with a girl named Lindsey, who had been on the team the year before, and she really took me under her wing. I started talking to her at the finalist mixer and she asked me a lot of questions about myself and where I came from. At the time, the transportation situation and low quality air mattress I was sleeping on were just really starting to wear on me, and I confided in her that I was getting burnt out and exhausted. She actually invited me to stay with her in her house and was just such a genuine help to me. She already had been through the experience before and so her guidance was seriously amazing! She helped me with the little stuff, like getting my hair done and going over the routines together, but more than that, she really gave me peace of mind. The fact that I had someone there that could work on things together with me was valuable beyond measure. After the auditions, we were hanging out and waiting to see if we had made the team. We were refreshing Instagram every couple of seconds, as they were announcing one new team member every 15-30 minutes, so it was an all-day ordeal waiting to find out if we had made the cut. Halfway through the day, I called my mom and just talked to her about the probability of me not making it. I told her I would call her back if I heard anything, and literally the second we hung up, my picture popped up announcing that I had made it! So I called her back and we freaked out together over the phone, which was super fun! It was completely surreal and one of the most lasting moments of my life. Despite all the odds, I had made it happen and one of my dreams had come true! I feel like the story is cool because it was just sort of a wild whirlwind of an experience, but I think that was honestly really good for me. I didn’t have the time to overthink things or stress myself out about it. And then after the moment faded, I was like “Oh, I live in Atlanta now. The course of my life has changed!”

"I have a group of friends from high school that have stayed true to each other throughout time and distance (Hi Hannah, Lauryn, and Tess!) There are four of us, and those three girls are truly like sisters to me. Each year, we go through new experiences together and grow even closer than we were when we spent everyday with each other in high school. We are very spread out over the United States now, but we all still make a huge effort to visit each other and each other’s families. They are my sisterhood. We are all very different from each other, and come from different kinds of families, but there is something so strong within our friendship that we just click and support one another. We are very compassionate towards each other and cheer each other on. We don’t compete and we just understand each other on a deep level. You become like the people you surround yourself with, and I have been so lucky to surround myself with some truly great people. Good friendships come from people who are open to other people’s perspective, and I am so glad to have those types of people in my life.

My sister and I are pretty far apart in age, and I feel like we are finally getting to an age where we may understand each other a little bit better. She’s fifteen now, and is starting to make life decisions and it’s cool to watch her sort of grow up. She’s much more go-with-the-flow than I am. She makes friends in all realms, which is great. But she definitely is more of a people pleaser than I am and I’d like her to see that it doesn’t matter what other people think of you. There are so many things that people will tell you that you should do or shouldn’t do, but at the end of the day, I think what matters is the energy you are putting out into the world. You know what your own happiness is and where it is found, and that’s what you should be pursuing. It’s about giving your best and being the best version of yourself!"

"As I get older, I notice a lot of how being a woman affects my life. I didn’t see a lot of conflict when I was younger; not a lot of belittling or ugliness towards me as a female. My parents raised me to be super confident in who I was and I just really didn’t question it. Now, as I’m entering womanhood, I feel a shift in how I am treated. It depends on which environment I’m in. I recently saw a quote about how at the age of twenty, we call males men, but we don’t call females women until they are much older. I think women are very typecast to be wrapped up and made pretty with a bow on top starting from a very young age. I don’t necessarily feel that pressure, but I do recognize it more in people around me. I was never afraid to be myself, maybe because I didn’t feel like I fit in often. I do, however, feel like women around me feel pressure to be a specific type of woman and fit a mold. Women aren’t a specific one brand. We don’t all fit in the same mold. People are so diverse, and when you put a small idea around what women are, it limits half of the population in so many ways and I don’t like that. Now, I’m just ready for the people who haven't moved forward with society in accepting that women can be all kinds of things and you can’t limit them, to be welcomed to 2017 or left in the past. Labeling everything is boring. There are so many layers to all people of all genders, and it is unfair to assume that we can be put in a small box. I want to live in a world where everyone can live confidently as themselves without fear of repercussions against them."

​Jess has a way of making everyone around her feel like the best version of themselves. I loved being her teacher because her hard work and determination made me look good, but I much more enjoy being her friend as she reminds me of the small acts of love that make the world a better place! She is truly one of a kind, and we are thrilled to have her in the Sisterhood!

{All photos are property of Simply Sisterhood and Smitten by a Promise Photography. ​Please refrain from cropping, editing or copying photos.}